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TriRock San Diego - Olympic Course - Triathlon


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San Diego, California
United States
Competitor Group
68F / 20C
Sunny
Total Time = 2h 40m 17s
Overall Rank = 124/525
Age Group = M 40-44
Age Group Rank = 16/44
Pre-race routine:

I drove to San Diego on Saturday morning, checked in at the expo and got to the hotel without incident. Traveling solo, I just needed to prepare my equipment for the next day. I got to bed at a reasonable time and was looking forward to seeing how I would perform on a flat course with both new wheels on the bike and less body weight to carry.
Event warmup:

I walked the bike from the hotel to the convention center and set up in transition. I was early, but not absurdly so, so there wasn’t too much time to kill while waiting for the start. They announced that the water temperature was 74, which is ideal for me. The harbor also looked calm, and there were buoys every 100 meters. In addition, the harbor wasn’t too large, and there would be land in sight all the way around the course. All of these factors were ideal for me. After finding people from my wave, it was time to get in line to start.
Swim
  • 37m 30s
  • 1500 meters
  • 02m 30s / 100 meters
Comments:

The start was a time trial format, where they let a few people in the water at a time to alleviate congestion. I haven’t seen it done that way too often, but I think it is a good system and it seems to be gaining popularity. The downside is that there is no time to delay after jumping in – you need to start swimming immediately in order to get out of the way of the people jumping in behind you.
I got started and the first buoy was next to me in no time. The buoys kept coming, since they were spaced so closely. For whatever reason, there was a lot more contact on the swim than I am used to, but nothing too serious and nothing that seemed to cause much disruption for either swimmer. I was smoother and pausing less than normal in open water. With all of the buoys, I felt more comfortable continuing to just swim rather than sighting, knowing that when I did look up, the marker would be easy to see and not too far away if I needed to alter my path.
I made the final turns and headed for the ramp. There were volunteers to assist us to the stairs out of the water, which was helpful. I exited the water and checked my time. It was solid, but not spectacular. It certainly was among my better swims, and while a couple have been faster, this one might have been the smoothest. It was a good start to the morning.

What would you do differently?:

I didn’t really push the pace, and I got a little off course a couple of times.
Transition 1
  • 05m 14s
Comments:

While in transition, I noticed that I had not gotten my race belt out of the bag when I set up. I retrieved it and set it with my running shoes for later. It cost me a little time, but it would have been a fairly slow transition either way.
Bike
  • 1h 00m 17s
  • 22 miles
  • 21.90 mile/hr
Comments:

The bike course is where I really wanted to push in this race. I felt like I had underperformed at Mountain Man and hadn’t gotten to race on the new wheels yet, so I wanted test the new equipment as well as the training time I have put in over the last few months. Due to being five waves back, there were already plenty of people on the course, which necessitated a lot of passing. Unfortunately, there seemed to a lot of inexperienced riders who were riding on the right side of the lane and made passing challenging. In addition, there were a lot of turns and rough roads to contend with. Some of the abrupt turns were sharper in person than they were on paper, and the road condition was sketchy in a lot of places. While I had visions of bettering my average speed (22.4) from the OSU Tri in June, it was just not destined to happen on this course. While I was riding pretty hard, I was having to hit the brakes and weave around rough pavement a lot more than I would like.
I finished the first lap at least knowing what the course had in store, so I knew the spots that were rough and where the sharper turns were. There were a few spots where I took corners a little too hard and didn’t ease up on the front wheel enough on a rough spot. On one right hand turn, my leg actually made contact with a pylon. I didn’t knock it over, but I was riding a lot sloppier than usual. That ended up being the overriding theme for my mental game on the day.
When I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to average more than 22.4mph, I started setting my sights on finishing the bike course in under an hour (it was supposed to be 22 miles, but I knew after the first lap that it was a little short). I pressed on the second half, but had to slow down in the maze of bumps and pot holes in the last mile of the course. I also didn’t account for the loop around the transition area and the space between the dismount line and the timing mat. I ended up missing the goal by 17 seconds. While disappointing, I felt better after the results came out and saw that I finished 24th out of 535 total people on the bike – one of my best results ever.

Transition 2
  • 02m 55s
Comments:

I started to run out of transition, and felt like I was forgetting something. I realized that I didn’t have my hat. Like my race belt, I had forgotten to get it out of my bag when I set up in the morning. I went back to get it – not sure if it was for purposes of practicality (visor) or vanity (race pictures). Regardless, I lost a minute or two going back to get it and chalked up another sloppy mistake.
Run
  • 54m 19s
  • 6 kms
  • 09m 03s  min/km
Comments:

I didn’t have any expectations going into the run. Certainly, I wanted to do well, but I hadn’t tied many specific goals to it. My previous event that I had done in San Diego, last June, I literally limped into with knee surgery on the calendar a few weeks later. Last year, I was overweight and undertrained. This year, I was coming into this event with an entirely different perspective – healthy, fit, and well trained. I just hoped that there would be a contrast in the performance.
I started running and settled in to a faster than usual, but not unsustainable, pace. After running the loop around Embarcadero Park, I passed the first mile marker and checked my pace. I was running at around a nine minute mile, which is much faster than my training pace (usually between 10 and 11 minutes/mile). Since I felt like I could sustain the pace for a while, I decided to chase it and see how deep into the run I could hold it. As I considered the possibility of running nearly a 10k at a sub 9 minute pace, I started to feel like I could turn a good day into something special. I ran the next two miles and finished the first lap right at a 9:00 pace. Since I was right on the edge of the goal, I wanted to give myself a little bit of a buffer, so I picked up the pace slightly. If I could sustain it through miles four and five, I would run some 30 second intervals (where I run hard for 30 seconds at a time) in the final mile to leave no doubt. I checked my mile splits after four and five and saw that I had gotten about 15-20 seconds ahead of pace. I felt confident that I could do it and even improve over the final mile. I did about three or four intervals during the final mile and as I entered the finish chute, I felt the Garmin alert me that I was at six miles. I had done it in less than 54 minutes. However, as it turned out, the course was measured differently than the Garmin. While the finish line was 6.15 miles for the Garmin, it was 6.0 for the event, so I only got official credit for a 9:03 pace. Disappointing, but deep down I feel like I ran that course at the pace I saw on my watch.

What would you do differently?:

My run far exceeded any expectations I had going in.
Post race
Warm down:

I sat down with a Gatorade and waited for transition to open up. Once it did, I grabbed my equipment and headed back to the hotel.

Event comments:

Despite some disappointments (course measured 9:03 run pace, seventeen seconds over an hour on the bike) and sloppiness (bike cornering, leaving things in my transition bag), I had a fantastic race. Sometimes, without having the perspective of how I performed next to everyone else, I have a tendency to be too critical. When I saw the results, I felt great – 24th overall on the bike, top 25% overall, top half of the run, and 16th out of 44 in the age group. These are great numbers for me. I even figured out why I may not have gotten set up properly. I usually have everything in my bag, organized, and ready to lay out. However, for this event, I had a mile to walk to get there, so I wore my running shoes. I removed them in transition and placed them next to my bike shoes, neglecting to pull out the race belt and hat that are normally stuffed inside them. Silly mistake that I can laugh about now. The work over the spring and summer have certainly paid off, but it is now back to training – I have Pumpkinman and Patagonia in back to back weekends coming up in five weeks. They are probably the two toughest courses I am doing this year – should be an interesting way to close out what has been a good season so far. Pumpkinman will be my fiftieth triathlon (and probably the fiftieth race report many of you have read :) ), and it is one of my favorite races – J and the pups will be there, so that one promises to be special.




Last updated: 2014-09-27 12:00 AM
Swimming
00:37:30 | 1500 meters | 02m 30s / 100meters
Age Group: 20/44
Overall: 158/525
Performance: Good
Suit:
Course: Rectangular course in San Diego Harbor behind the convention center.
Start type: Dive Plus: Waves
Water temp: 74F / 23C Current:
200M Perf. Remainder:
Breathing: Drafting:
Waves: Navigation:
Rounding:
T1
Time: 05:14
Performance:
Cap removal: Helmet on/
Suit off:
Wetsuit stuck? Run with bike:
Jump on bike:
Getting up to speed:
Biking
01:00:17 | 22 miles | 21.90 mile/hr
Age Group: 5/44
Overall: 24/525
Performance: Good
Wind:
Course:
Road: Potholes Dry Cadence:
Turns: Cornering:
Gear changes: Hills:
Race pace: Drinks:
T2
Time: 02:55
Overall:
Riding w/ feet on shoes
Jumping off bike
Running with bike
Racking bike
Shoe and helmet removal
Running
00:54:19 | 06 kms | 09m 03s  min/km
Age Group: 23/44
Overall: 216/525
Performance: Good
Course: Two loops of an out and back through Seaport Village and around North Embarcadero and Tuna Harbor Parks
Keeping cool Drinking
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5]
Physical exertion [1-5]
Good race?
Evaluation
Course challenge
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities:
Race evaluation [1-5] 4

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2014-09-27 6:10 AM

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